The woman who knows what lies beneath…
When Nicosia’s sewerage system is complete, it will comprise of over 700km of pipes. It’s a logistical nightmare overseeing its installation
It’s not a topic of polite conversation, but a chance meeting over a dinner brought me a whole new insight into what lies beneath. Jelena Zdravkovic is quietly spoken and highly experienced and she is literally sorting out the sewage. In 2004 she became the Chief Design Engineer on the Greater Nicosia Sewerage System, with most of the city still serviced by old fashioned cesspits this is a colossal task: 700km of collection pipes to be laid and organised.
Under EU directives any settlement of over 2,000 people must have proper drainage systems, otherwise the risk to health by sewerage affecting ground water supplies is too great. Jelena says that until recently economies in Europe were focused on water supply, now the interest has switched to sewerage. Water is a commodity that will increasingly be at the forefront of developmental issues. Recycling sewage makes an important contribution to conservation, health and sustainable development.
She says. “ No-one thinks about sewage when they are developing,” but certainly, as is the case in Nicosia, where some complexes are having to empty their cesspits once a month because the soil cannot absorb overspill, with all the smell and inconvenience that causes, we cannot ignore what goes down our loos or where it goes. She hopes that by 2009 the whole of Nicosia will be connected, safe and sanitary. Farewell to smell.
Currently, she has two projects under construction: she is also sorting out the sewerage and drainage of Paphos. She is meeting her deadlines, but not without a cost. She works long hours, every day she is at her desk from 8am until 5.30 pm and often late into the night as well.
What is it like being a single, female professional in Cyprus? She smiles, in the workplace it is fine, her team now includes two young Cypriot female engineers but socially it is hard. This is not a user friendly society for females alone: with closed family networks it is hard to become part of the place, to feel included or to be invited into the local community. I tell her she is not alone, three other senior professional foreign women I have spoken to recently have told me the same thing.
It is not helped by bureaucratic inefficiency: like other foreigners working here she needs a ‘pink slip’ to make her legal. Even though she has been invited, because of her outstanding expertise, to work on a government contract she still had to wait eight months last year for her authorisation. During that time she was a virtual prisoner on the island, unable to leave because of the problems posed if she wished to return. As she says with a wry smile, “It’s as if they don’t appreciate me, every year it is the same bureaucratic nightmare.”
One of the difficulties she has faced has been mapping an area that had no maps, she laughed as she said, “I could work as a taxi driver now, I know every street”. She uses aerial photography and satellite images to help her plot the intricate design of pipelines. It’s a complex and painstaking task, using complicated computer-generated systems, maximising gravital flow and making sure that when it is finally all in place that our waste goes where it is meant to go and not back up the system.
Was it a strange choice of career? “No it seemed natural, in every sense,” she laughed. “My father and grandfather were both civil engineers. I think it is harder to do well in a man’s field,” she said “women had to be better to reach the top but now I think it is changing, at least in western Europe”.
Fluent in many languages, Jelena spends her free time singing in a French choir and playing tennis. Her office is full of fun: Garfield cartoons and witty, philosophical quotes line the walls, clearly having a sense of humour is important to her. She patently loves her job and cares about its outcome. What makes her angry? “Rubbish. “People who don’t care about their environment, who drink the water and toss the bottle to the side of the road.” As I left, I wondered how many of us would be prepared to do her job; to spend our days designing and laying the pipes for other people’s bodily waste; to go out on site and to do it with such pride and passion. She’s right, Cyprus should appreciate her: every time they flush.
